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Ethical Responsibility - An Arendtian Turn

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2017

Rita A. Gardiner
Rita A. Gardiner*
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario
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Abstract:

This article contends that Hannah Arendt’s writing can add value to current discussions on responsible leadership. Specifically, considering responsibility through an Arendtian lens offers insights that deepen our understanding of the interconnections among leadership, responsibility, and ethical action. Turning to Arendt can, therefore, increase our grasp of the complexities of leading responsibly. She shows how acting responsibly requires not only ethical forethought but also a willingness to judge for ourselves. Her emphasis on judgment enriches discussions on responsible leadership, encouraging us to think more deeply about what it might mean to act responsibly, and how such action connects with ethics. Examples of irresponsible action are explored as they concern individual and collective judgment in particular political and corporate contexts. Thus, it is by engaging with the messy realities of everyday life that an Arendtian turn can help us rethink leadership, ethics, and responsibility in new and productive ways.

Keywords

Arendtethicsjudgmentleadershipresponsibility
Type
Special Section
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 31 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2017 

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References

NOTES

1. Steve Kempster and Brigid Carroll, eds., Responsible Leadership: Realism and Romanticism (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 2.

2. The distinction Arendt makes has some parallels with C.S. Lewis, “Meditations from a Toolshed.” See http://www.pacificoc.org/wp-content/uploads/Meditation-in-a-Toolshed.pdf.

3. Patricia H. Werhane, “Mental Models,” Journal of Business Ethics 78, no. 3 (2008): 463-474.

4. Although Arendt described herself as a political thinker, her work is steeped in existential phenomenology, as well as moral philosophy. For an insightful look at her life and work, see Elizabeth Young-Bruel, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982).

5. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 220-230.

6. Briefly, solipsism is the philosophical idea, popularized by Rene Descartes, that the self is the only thing I can be sure of but, as Maurice Merleau-Ponty explains, solipsistic reasoning is erroneous since we exist as beings-in-the-world. Solipsism suggests that I could be the only conscious subject, however, this ignores the fact that I live in the world as subject and object, as others do likewise. For an informative discussion, see Eric Matthews, The Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty (Montreal: McGill/Queens, 2002).

7. Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Jovanich, 1978), 48.

8. Arendt’s discussions on thinking have multiple strands. First, there is her rebuke of Platonic thought, which she argues privileges contemplation over action. Second, there is her Kantian-inspired notion of thinking in terms of plurality. That is, our thought is enriched when we take other perspectives into consideration. Her third thinking strand is of thought as poetic. Here, Arendt is influenced by Walter Benjamin, and Martin Heidegger. For an interesting account of Arendt’s triadic approach to thinking, see Ian Storey, “Facing the End: The Work of Thinking in the Late Denktagebuch,” in Artifacts of Thinking: Reading Hannah Arendt’s Dentagebuch, ed. Roger Berkowitz and Ian Storey (New York: Fordham University Press, 2017), 162-181.

9. See Annabel Herzog, “Hannah Arendt’s Concept of Responsibility,” Studies in Social and Political Thought 10 (2004): 39-55.

10. One of Arendt’s targets here is Martin Heidegger whose flirtation with Nazism was something that Arendt saw as arising from his political naivety. For more on their complex relationship, see Young-Bruehl, ibid.

11. Seyla Benhabib, “Arendt and Adorno: The Elusiveness of the Particular and the Benjaminian Moment,” in Arendt and Adorno: Political and Philosophical Investigations, ed. Lars Rensmann and Samir Gandesha (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012), 31-56, 48.

12. Nicola M. Pless and Thomas Maak, “Responsible Leadership: Pathways to the Future,” Journal of Business Ethics 98, suppl. 1 (2011): 3-13, 4.

13. Thomas Maak and Nicola M. Pless, “Responsible Leadership in a Stakeholder Society: A Relational Perspective,” Journal of Business Ethics 66, no. 1 (2006): 99-115, 99.

14. See Donna Ladkin, Mastering the Ethical Dimension of Organizations (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2015), 77-78.

15. Kim Cameron, “Responsible Leadership as Virtuous Leadership,” Journal of Business Ethics 98, Suppl. 1 (2011): 25-35, 27.

16. Cameron, “Responsible Leadership as Virtuous Leadership,” 30.

17. Ibid.

18. Arendt, The Human Condition, 77.

19. Editors, “BEQ Past Trends and Future Directions in Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility Scholarship,” Business Ethics Quarterly 25 (October 2015): v-xv.

20. Nicola M. Pless and Thomas Maak, “Responsible Leaders as Agents of World Benefit: Learnings from ‘Project Ulysses,’” Journal of Business Ethics 85, suppl. 1 (2009): 59-71.

21. The problems with the Galaxy 7 have also been noted with some Galaxy edge phones. See Lulu Chang, “Another Samsung Device Just Caught on Fire - This Time, The Galaxy S7 Edge,” Digital Trends, October 24, 2016, www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/galaxy-s7-edge-catches-fire.

22. Chris Smith, “Galaxy Note 7’s Demise Explained: Bad Batteries and Worse Decisions,” BGR, January 23, 2017, http://bgr.com/2017/01/23/galaxy-note-7-battery-investigation/.

23. Se Young Lee, “Samsung’s Exploding Phones Fiasco Could Cost the Company $17 Billion,” Business Insider, October 11, 2016, www.businessinsider.com/r-note-7-fiasco-could-burn-a-17-billion-hole-in-samsung-accounts-2016-10.

24. Chow Sang-Hun, “Galaxy Note 7 Recall Dismays South Korea, the ‘Republic of Samsung,’” New York Times, October 22, 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/world/asia/galaxy-note-7-recall-south-korea-samsung.html.

25. David Waldman and Benjamin Galvin, “Alternative Perspective on Responsible Leadership,” Organizational Dynamics 37 (2017): 327-341.

26. For more on the problems with the ethical and economic paradigms, see Al Gini and Ronald M. Green, “Moral Leadership and Business Ethics,” in Ethics: The Heart of Leadership, ed. Joanne B. Ciulla (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2014), 32-53.

27. Scholars, influenced by Aristotle, have used this argument for business ethics. See, for example, Joanne B. Ciulla’s introduction to Ethics: The Heart of Leadership, xv-xix.

28. Christian Voegtlin, “What Does It Mean To Be Responsible? Addressing the Missing Responsibility Dimension in Ethical Leadership Research,” Leadership 12 (2016): 581-608.

29. Arendt, The Human Condition, 179.

30. Rita A. Gardiner, Gender, Authenticity and Leadership: Thinking with Arendt (New York and London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015), 88-89.

31. Majella O’Leary, “Work Identification and Responsibility in Moral Breakdown,” Business Ethics: A European Review 24, no. 3 (2006): 237-251, 247.

32. David Knights and Majella O’Leary, “Leadership Ethics and Responsibility to the Other,” Journal of Business Ethics 67 (2006): 125-137.

33. O’Leary, “Work Identification,” 247.

34. Knights and O’Leary, “Leadership Ethics,” 126.

35. Ibid.

36. Jen Jones, “Leadership lessons from Levinas,” Leadership and the Humanities 2, no. 1 (2014): 44-63.

37. Ronald C. Arnett, “Colloquium on Levinas, Leadership, and Ethics,” Leadership and the Humanities 4, no. 1 (2016): 38-51, 45.

38. Anna Topolski argues the face is not a good translation of Levinas since the Hebrew word panim only exists in the plural. See her discussion in Arendt, Levinas and a Politics of Relationality (London and New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 121.

39. Chris Ketcham, “Living the Practical Levinas: A Response to Jones,” Colloquium on Levinas, Leadership, and Ethics, Leadership and the Humanities 4, no. 1 (2016): 38-42.

40. Jen Jones, “The Derivative Organization and Responsible Leadership: Levinas’s Dwelling and Discourse,” Colloquium on Levinas, Leadership, and Ethics, Leadership and the Humanities 4, no. 1 (2016): 41-44.

41. Jones, “The Derivative Organization,” 43. See also Donna Ladkin, Rethinking Leadership: A New Look at Old Leadership Questions (Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2010).

42. For more on this topic, see Gardiner, Gender, Authenticity and Leadership.

43. Arendt, The Human Condition, 189-90.

44. Aditya Charabortty. “Yes, zero hours work can be banned: New Zealand has just done it,” The Guardian, August 16, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/16/zero-hours-banned-new-zealand-unite-union-mcdonalds-sports-direct-hermens-deliveroo.

45. Hannah Arendt, On Violence (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1970), 44.

46. Arendt begins her essay on “Some Questions of Moral Philosophy” with a tribute to Churchill’s leadership. See Hannah Arendt, Responsibility and Judgment, ed. Jerome Kohn (New York: Schocken Books, 2003), 49-146, 49-50.

47. Arendt, The Human Condition, 224.

48. Arendt, The Human Condition, 190.

49. Arendt, The Human Condition, 189.

50. Arendt, The Human Condition, 234. Such a way of thinking, according to Ronald C. Arnett, can also encourage dark times as the focus shifts from ethics to a focus on efficiency and personal autonomy, rather than a more collective approach. See Ronald C. Arnett, Communication Ethics in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt’s Rhetoric of Warning and Hope (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013).

51. Hannah Arendt, “The Great Tradition: II. Ruling and Being Ruled,” Social Research: An International Quarterly 74 (Winter 2007): 941-954.

52. Arendt, The Life of the Mind, 180.

53. Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 43.

54. Arendt, “Collective Responsibility,” See Hannah Arendt, Responsibility and Judgment, ed. Jerome Kohn (New York: Schocken Books, 2003), 147-159.

55. Sarah Ahmed explores this issue of government’s apologies to indigenous people in her chapter on “Shame” in The Cultural Politics of Emotion (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), 101-122.

56. Arendt, “Collective Responsibility,” 147-59.

57. Hannah Arendt, Promise of Politics (New York: Schoken Books, 2005), 106.

58. See George Kateb, “The Judgment of Arendt,” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 53 (1999): 133-154.

59. See Rita A. Gardiner and Katy Fulfer, “Family Matters: An Arendtian Critique of Family as an Organizational Structure,” Gender, Work and Organization (2017). DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12177.

60. Alejo José G. Sison, “Leadership, Character, and Virtues from an Aristotelian Viewpoint,” in Responsible Leadership, ed. Thomas Maak and Nicola M. Pless (London and New York: Springer, 2006), 108-122, 120.

61. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, trans. Robert Hurley (London and New York: Vintage Books, 1978).

62. See Arendt’s discussion on action, The Human Condition, 236-243.

63. Hannah Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” in Responsibility and Judgment, ed. Jerome Kohn (New York: Schocken Books, 2003), 159-193.

64. Arendt, On Violence, 39.

65. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Penguin, 1965), 295.

66. Arendt, On Violence, 40.

67. Arendt’s focus here is Western Europe, particularly France and England. Her discussion on the rise of the social can be found in The Human Condition, 38-50.

68. Arendt, The Human Condition, 40-41. I discuss Arendt’s approach to social conformity in more detail in Gender, Authenticity and Leadership: Thinking with Arendt, 35-37.

69. Hannah Arendt, “What Remains? The Language Remains: A Conversation with Günter Gaus,” in Arendt: Essays in Understanding 1939-1954, ed. Jerome Kohn (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994), 1-24, 20.

70. Arendt, The Human Condition, 181.

71. Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 187.

72. Ibid.

73. Arendt, “Thinking,” The Life of the Mind, 176.

74. Arendt, “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” 177.

75. Hannah Arendt, The Promise of Politics, ed. Jerome Kohn (New York: Schocken Books, 2005), 113.

76. Arendt, “Willing,” The Life of the Mind, 109.

77. Ibid.

78. Thomas Maak, Nicola M. Pless, and Christiann Voegtlin, “Business Statesman or Shareholder Advocate? A Multilevel Contingency Model of Responsible CEO Leadership Styles in a Global World,” Journal of Management Studies 53 (2016): 463-493.

79. Rob Davies, “‘Negligible’ Link Between Executive Pay and Firm’s Performance, Says Study,” The Guardian, December 27, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/dec/27/negligible-link-between-executive-pay-and-firms-performance-says-study.

80. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, trans. J. H. Bernard (New York: Dover, 2005).

81. There are divergent strands in Arendt’s thinking on moral responsibility. This is because Arendt tries to connect Aristotle’s phronesis, or practical wisdom, with a Kantian approach to morality. This can lead to confusion since the first way of thinking about ethics focuses on the particular, while Kant’s ideas about morality are directed toward universal laws. For a helpful discussion, see Seyla Benhabib, “Judgment and the Moral Foundations of Politics in Arendt’s Thought,” Political Theory 16, no. 1 (Feb, 1988): 29-51.

82. Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, 15.

83. Ibid.

84. Hannah Arendt, “Some Questions of Moral Philosophy,” in Responsibility and Judgment, ed. Jerome Kohn (New York: Schocken Books, 2003), 49-146, 141.

85. Jon Henley, “Why Vote Leave’s £350m Weekly EU Cost Claim is Wrong,” The Guardian, June 16, 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/politics/reality-check/2016/may/23/does-the-eu-really-cost-the-uk-350m-a-week.

86. Alan Travis, “The Leave Campaign Made Three Key Promises - Are They Keeping Them?,” The Guardian, June 27, 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/27/eu-referendum-reality-check-leave-campaign-promises.

87. Charles Taylor in conversation with Michael Enright, The Sunday Edition, CBC radio, January 22, 2017.

88. Hannah Arendt, “Truth and Politics,” in Between Past and Future (London and New York: Penguin, 1993), 227-265.

89. Arendt, The Promise of Politics, 15.

90. Arendt, The Human Condition, 324.

91. Graham K. Henning, “Corporation and Polis,” Journal of Business Ethics 103 (2011): 289-303.

92. Kemptser and Carroll, eds., Responsible Leadership, 3.

93. Arnett, Communication Ethics in Dark Times.

94. Arendt’s own judgments were sometimes ill-conceived, as in her controversial assessment of “Little Rock.” See Kathryn Gines, Hannah Arendt and the Negro Question (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2014).

95. Topolski, Arendt, Levinas and a Politics of Relationality, 102.